Cato the Elder

I was born at Tusculum in 234, of plebeian stock with sturdy means and stricter morals. I earned my first scars in the war with Hannibal across Italy, and later kept Scipio Africanus’s accounts in Africa as quaestor. Early on I learned to distrust purple cloaks and soft living; plain speech and thrift suited me better than perfume.

My steps up the magistracies were quick. As praetor in 198 I governed Sardinia with austerity. As consul in 195 I campaigned in Hispania—hard on myself, harder on the enemy—and won a triumph. In Greece, serving as legate against Antiochus in 191, I took a rough mountain path and fell on the enemy’s rear. I praised the ways of our ancestors: discipline, work, and the small farm kept in order.

Elected censor in 184, I weighed citizens and accounts alike. I removed unworthy names from the Senate, set strict terms for public contracts, and rebuked extravagance and civic vanity. I sponsored the Basilica Porcia so business could be done under cover, yet said the state’s finest ornaments are virtuous men, not marble.

I wrote as I spoke—without ornament. De Agri Cultura set down how to manage vines and olives, contracts and households: a farmer’s book that is also a rule of life. In Origines I traced Rome’s rise and spared great men their flattery. I knew Greek learning but bent it to Roman virtue. In old age I brought fresh African figs into the Curia and ended my speeches so: Carthage must be destroyed. I died in 149, as that war began.